at the First Congregational Church of Stoughton

United Church of Christ

I have lived in the Northeast for all of my almost-55 years, and I long ago made up my mind to quit complaining about the winter weather. After all, I could always move. But I must admit that I am glad it is finally March. Not that the winter weather is abating much. After a tease of spring the last few days, it’s snowing right now, and the predictions are we’re going to get clobbered tonight – once again.

This has been a long, cold, snowy winter. People who live in warmer climes might have an idealized vision of winter, perpetuated by Currier and Ives. Snowman. Ice skating. Sleigh rides. Cocoa by a roaring fire while the snow gently falls outside.

Ah -- but we know better, don’t we? Snow means shoveling. Snow means treacherous driving. Ice brings the risk of falling and breaking an ankle (just ask John Baglole!). Cold and wind create frigid temps, dry skin, and chapped lips. No, I will not be sorry to say good-bye to winter.

But winter can happen within our hearts, too, no matter how warm a climate we may be living in. It’s called winter of the soul. It’s when we can’t find God; when we feel as if God has let go of us.¹

Winter of the soul may come when we have lost a job or experienced a failure -- leaving us with feelings of sadness, loss, and shame – and we ask God why, but God does not respond.

Winter may arrive the day the word comes back from the doctor’s lab that, despite all our fervent prayers, the test was positive, and we realize that all the dreams we took for granted might not be fulfilled.

Winter may come when we feel we have failed as a parent, or a loved one dies, and we cry out to God, but God seems absent.

In the winter of the soul, it is hard to find God.

Certain books of the bible – Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, and many of the psalms – are “wintry” books. But in all human history, no one has embodied winter more than a man named Job.

The bible tells us that Job “was blameless and upright, and he feared God and turned away from evil.” He was a good and faithful man with a loving wife, ten children, and much property. But in a matter of just a few verses, Job’s idyllic life falls apart. All of Job’s servants are slaughtered by enemies; all his camels are stolen, and lightning kills his sheep. Then, a desert wind lifts up the roof of the house and the house falls down, killing all his children as they eat dinner together around the table. Yet, even with all of these devastating calamities, Job falls upon the ground and worships God, crying, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

But then itching sores erupt all over Job’s body, from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. And finally, sitting in an ash heap and left to scratching his sores with broken pieces of pottery, Job erupts, saying “God curse the day that I was born! Why didn’t I die at birth! Why am I suffering? I am innocent!!”

In this morning’s Old Testament lesson, Job speaks of God’s absence, lamenting: “If I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.” For Job, God has vanished, and winter has come.

In the Gospels, winter of the soul is represented by the wilderness, which is the biblical image of being lost and abandoned by God. And it is into the wilderness we follow Jesus on this first Sunday of Lent.

During his wilderness experience, Jesus faces testing and temptation. What do you face in yours? A broken relationship? An addiction? Illness? Hopelessness? Many of us sitting here today feel like we are out in our own bleak, barren, and desolate landscape, yearning for the warmth and love of God, who seems far away. Jesus spends 40 days in a place that God has seemed to have forsaken, and on our Lenten journey, we spend 40 days following Jesus through the last days of his earthly life.

In Scripture, the number forty is code for a period of time that is theologically and spiritually significant. Lent is a time for self-examination and preparation for Christ’s crucifixion on Good Friday, and his resurrection on Easter. Lent is a time for us to review our lives and let them be directed by God; a time for us to repent of our sins and get into “right relationship” with God. The word “Lent” comes from the old English word for spring, and rather than being a wintry time for our souls, Lent is full of expectancy for something new to be born – a new attitude, a new hope, a new relationship with God -- a holy springtime for our souls in which we nurture and grow our faith in God.

We are offering several opportunities for you to grow closer to God this Lent. Please join us on Sunday mornings at 9:15 for about 20 minutes of praying together in a small group. We pray for the people and concerns participants bring, we pray for those people listed on our blue Caring Ministry sheet, and also for any joys or concerns made known to us.

On Sunday evenings beginning at 6:45, we will be discussing the book Real Faith for Real Life: Living the Six Marks of Discipleship by Michael W. Foss. If it’s hard for you to get up the energy to go out in the evening, think of it this way: it’s only for six weeks, and this can your Lenten discipline, the way that you will walk the Lenten path this year. We hope you will join us this evening. A few books are still available in the lobby, and I’ll gladly order more.

I am also happy to offer this group on Tuesday mornings from 10 to 11:30, but no one has yet signed up. If I can three participants, I will run this group beginning this coming Tuesday.

Lent is a wonderful time to begin practicing the six marks of discipleship that you keep hearing me talk about – weekly worship, daily prayer, reading the bible, spiritual friendships, serving and giving. I know that praying and reading the bible are particularly difficult to cultivate into a regular practice, so we want to give you some help this Lent. For my own devotional time, I am using a wonderful book entitled The Message Remix: Solo. It contains a passage for each day, with suggestions for reading, thinking, praying, and living the scripture. It only takes about 15 minutes a day, and you can do it at your convenience. You can pick up a copy out in the lobby for only $10, and I hope you will find it helpful not only on your Lenten journey but also as you practice the marks of discipleship throughout the year.

When we are experiencing a winter of the soul, feeling abandoned by God, Lent reminds us that God has entered into our suffering and has experienced it all before us. The God we seek in our spiritual winters is God with a human face. The God who bids us to come to him has his arms outstretched, and his hands bear the marks of the nail prints. He opens his heart of love and grace to us, even in the wilderness times of our lives. No matter what sorrows or sadness we experience, the cross casts its shadow, reminding us that God has been there before us. God enters into our sorrows, our failures, our tears, our struggles because through Jesus, God knows sadness, rejection, pain, and death as we do.

Can a human being hold on to God and faith and love even in the dead of winter?

Job never finds out why he has experienced his winter, but his springtime does come, and he finds something better that answers to his questions; he finds God. Late in his book, Job says “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.” That’s enough for Job. He sees God and is assured that God is with him.

Jesus is not alone in his wilderness, either; our Gospel lesson tells us that, at the end of 40 days, angels – God’s messengers -- wait on him. Jesus then withdraws to Galilee, and from that time on, he begins to teach, heal and preach, proclaiming the Good News of God. In other words, Jesus is transformed by his time in the desert, and he shows us that when the unsettling, painful, seemingly God-forsaken times in life come, we too can grow through them, being changed and transformed into something new.

As you journey these 40 days of Lent, I pray that it may be a time that you strengthen your relationship with Christ and renew your trust that God will be with you throughout all your wintry times. May this season of Lent truly be a holy spring time for our soul in which we trust in the promise that, just as God was with Job and with Jesus during their spiritual winters, God will be with us, too. Amen.